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Can you read the words that I am typing?
As I type up this post, I'm also composing an email to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
justacat, whose Slash Resource Site is making waves this week. I'm asking her to take down the link to my recs journal. My reasons?
1) She spelled my name wrong. Spacing counts.
2) She abbreviated my name as Mart. Mart. I'd be more likely to forgive this if my recs journal wasn't namedsecubus_mhc.
These may sound terribly petty, but they reflect a carelessness that I abhor.
3) She did not ask if the owners of these recs sites and journals wanted to be affiliated with her project. I'm a big fan of net liberalism and she was within her rights to link without asking. However, when one is managing a high profile project, it is generally considered polite to ask before linking. I am now affiliated with this project, whether I like it or not, and by extension, with her ideology.
4) I disagree rather profoundly with her 'methods' and ideology. Yes folks, she has one. Despite claims that recs sites in particular and fanfic in general are apolitical, they are not. Politics is nothing less than the interaction of people. Everything we do is political. Everything. Ducking into a metaphorical foxhole and pretending that the bad politicks-stuff will go away is asinine and ignorant. Everything has a deeper meaning. Everyone has an agenda. To argue otherwise is just wankery of the most obvious sort. By method, I mean that her compilation is not consistent. She has not drawn every slash link from those sites and she has linked to stories that were not reced. She has also neglected to find recs for less popular pairings - the site is dominated by H/D and Snarry. Finally, she's linked PAST the warnings in some cases.
5) None of my recs actually appear on her site. Is she linking to my recs journal for some reason other than my recs? Or has she gone live without completing the site? While I understand that sites are always in progress, I think it sloppy to add one set of links without also adding the complimentary ones.
That's enough for me to want to get free of this particular venture.
acadine expressed similar concerns and overwhelmingly the response was "Good lord, woman! Get over yourself." Essentially respondents are calling her foolish for being troubled by careless slights and for reading an agenda into the site itself. It should be clear that I don't think she's being foolish.
acadine says:
"What I mean by "dedicated slashers" are people who're basically all in it for the hot m/m action. They seem almost utterly disinterested in the world or plot of the books themselves, they never write female characters or gen (or even let them sneak into their boyslash), they're basically only readers and writers of m/m emotional porn.
I know this is a site for those kinds of people, and not for me, and I shouldn't really expect everyone who reads my stuff to read it in the same light I do, but this still creeps me out. A lot of the exclusively m/m crowd does have this weird air of misogyny and living in their own little world that I'm just plain not comfortable with."
i.e. Those who deride het and gen may be misogynist. Those who express disgust for it may be misogynist. Those who couch their adoration of slash in terms of its ability to elide gender roles may be misogynist.
She says nothing about what gets you WET (not hard, but WET, ladies), or what happens to be your kink. She is arguing about the context of slash, not the existence of male slash. She is not arguing that m/m slash is The Dumb. She is not arguing that porn is inherently misogynistic or that we should all be holding hands and writing PC genfic. She does not, in fact, ever mention the need to political sensitivity when articulating sexual fantasies.
Context.
Many slash readers refuse to read het because
1) It's disgusting.
2) It's misogynistic.
The idea is that slash, free as it is of those super-icky vaginas, is a wonderful fantasy land where cocks roam free, girls masturbate with the hand not busily scrolling down for the next thrust, and everyone is free of gender stereotypes.
The thing is, slash can't be both free of a political agenda and an agent for breaking down gender stereotypes. That is in of itself a political agenda.
Providing a vagina-free environment is a political agenda.
Saying you have no agenda? Is FUELED BY A POLITICAL AGENDA.
Acadine is disturbed by that part of fandom that is so blinded by self-hatred that they cannot bare to read about female sexuality unless it is clothed in the psuedo-masculine tropes of slash. She is disturbed by the notion that one cannot be aroused by fiction, unless there is a cock present and that sexual desire can only be expressed through cocks.
Let me also point out that writing m/m slash is not a free ticket out of the land of gender stereotyping and misogyny, since many feminized male characters embody an attitude of gross self-hatred, by their very existence. M/M slash is often worse in this sense, as many authors depend on the existence of gender roles for their salt. Their stories are hinged on gender stereotyping. Bottom/Top. Dominant/Submissive. They are written into our cultural fabric so tightly that they inform all expressions of sexuality. So many slash stories play off of this to the point that they are inherently misogynistic. Blanket denial of gender roles by excluding women is not an empowering act; it is a refusal to deal critically with one’s own sexuality.
Assaeva said in IM:
“One cannot escape gender roles, whether the characters are "male", "female", or hermaphrodites. Gender roles, whether you accept or reject them, are something that are repeated to you daily, constantly, in everything around you from the minute you are born and the doctor announces whether you have a vagina or a dick.
Trying to escape gender roles is the exact opposite of the logical thing to do. Let me repeat: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. Therefore, all you ickle slashers out there who think you're so 'enlightened' and 'aren't we great because we escape those eeebbiiill gender stereotypes? Get. A. Fucking. Clue. Your slash? Has gender stereotypes *unless* you *actively* attempt to negate the social influence of your life. Which ninety-nine percent of you don't do because if you did? You wouldn't think the fucking Minister of Magic was elected and the Malfoys might just be (or pretend to be) old school Protestant (but, hey, that's another rant all together). ”
Ok, one more time. Politics=life. Also? Opinions and lj posts are generally not social prescriptions.
Fandom is full of politics and denying its existence is just The Dumb. I could go over why the posts in this thread seem to be mostly the fault of an inability to read critically, but I’d just be boring myself. Instead, I’m just going to say this: read twice before getting your back up. Not every critical post is an attack on your Sacred Cocks.
justacat, whose Slash Resource Site is making waves this week. I'm asking her to take down the link to my recs journal. My reasons? 1) She spelled my name wrong. Spacing counts.
2) She abbreviated my name as Mart. Mart. I'd be more likely to forgive this if my recs journal wasn't named
secubus_mhc. These may sound terribly petty, but they reflect a carelessness that I abhor.
3) She did not ask if the owners of these recs sites and journals wanted to be affiliated with her project. I'm a big fan of net liberalism and she was within her rights to link without asking. However, when one is managing a high profile project, it is generally considered polite to ask before linking. I am now affiliated with this project, whether I like it or not, and by extension, with her ideology.
4) I disagree rather profoundly with her 'methods' and ideology. Yes folks, she has one. Despite claims that recs sites in particular and fanfic in general are apolitical, they are not. Politics is nothing less than the interaction of people. Everything we do is political. Everything. Ducking into a metaphorical foxhole and pretending that the bad politicks-stuff will go away is asinine and ignorant. Everything has a deeper meaning. Everyone has an agenda. To argue otherwise is just wankery of the most obvious sort. By method, I mean that her compilation is not consistent. She has not drawn every slash link from those sites and she has linked to stories that were not reced. She has also neglected to find recs for less popular pairings - the site is dominated by H/D and Snarry. Finally, she's linked PAST the warnings in some cases.
5) None of my recs actually appear on her site. Is she linking to my recs journal for some reason other than my recs? Or has she gone live without completing the site? While I understand that sites are always in progress, I think it sloppy to add one set of links without also adding the complimentary ones.
That's enough for me to want to get free of this particular venture.
acadine expressed similar concerns and overwhelmingly the response was "Good lord, woman! Get over yourself." Essentially respondents are calling her foolish for being troubled by careless slights and for reading an agenda into the site itself. It should be clear that I don't think she's being foolish. acadine says: "What I mean by "dedicated slashers" are people who're basically all in it for the hot m/m action. They seem almost utterly disinterested in the world or plot of the books themselves, they never write female characters or gen (or even let them sneak into their boyslash), they're basically only readers and writers of m/m emotional porn.
I know this is a site for those kinds of people, and not for me, and I shouldn't really expect everyone who reads my stuff to read it in the same light I do, but this still creeps me out. A lot of the exclusively m/m crowd does have this weird air of misogyny and living in their own little world that I'm just plain not comfortable with."
i.e. Those who deride het and gen may be misogynist. Those who express disgust for it may be misogynist. Those who couch their adoration of slash in terms of its ability to elide gender roles may be misogynist.
She says nothing about what gets you WET (not hard, but WET, ladies), or what happens to be your kink. She is arguing about the context of slash, not the existence of male slash. She is not arguing that m/m slash is The Dumb. She is not arguing that porn is inherently misogynistic or that we should all be holding hands and writing PC genfic. She does not, in fact, ever mention the need to political sensitivity when articulating sexual fantasies.
Context.
Many slash readers refuse to read het because
1) It's disgusting.
2) It's misogynistic.
The idea is that slash, free as it is of those super-icky vaginas, is a wonderful fantasy land where cocks roam free, girls masturbate with the hand not busily scrolling down for the next thrust, and everyone is free of gender stereotypes.
The thing is, slash can't be both free of a political agenda and an agent for breaking down gender stereotypes. That is in of itself a political agenda.
Providing a vagina-free environment is a political agenda.
Saying you have no agenda? Is FUELED BY A POLITICAL AGENDA.
Acadine is disturbed by that part of fandom that is so blinded by self-hatred that they cannot bare to read about female sexuality unless it is clothed in the psuedo-masculine tropes of slash. She is disturbed by the notion that one cannot be aroused by fiction, unless there is a cock present and that sexual desire can only be expressed through cocks.
Let me also point out that writing m/m slash is not a free ticket out of the land of gender stereotyping and misogyny, since many feminized male characters embody an attitude of gross self-hatred, by their very existence. M/M slash is often worse in this sense, as many authors depend on the existence of gender roles for their salt. Their stories are hinged on gender stereotyping. Bottom/Top. Dominant/Submissive. They are written into our cultural fabric so tightly that they inform all expressions of sexuality. So many slash stories play off of this to the point that they are inherently misogynistic. Blanket denial of gender roles by excluding women is not an empowering act; it is a refusal to deal critically with one’s own sexuality.
As
saeva said in IM: “One cannot escape gender roles, whether the characters are "male", "female", or hermaphrodites. Gender roles, whether you accept or reject them, are something that are repeated to you daily, constantly, in everything around you from the minute you are born and the doctor announces whether you have a vagina or a dick.
Trying to escape gender roles is the exact opposite of the logical thing to do. Let me repeat: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. Therefore, all you ickle slashers out there who think you're so 'enlightened' and 'aren't we great because we escape those eeebbiiill gender stereotypes? Get. A. Fucking. Clue. Your slash? Has gender stereotypes *unless* you *actively* attempt to negate the social influence of your life. Which ninety-nine percent of you don't do because if you did? You wouldn't think the fucking Minister of Magic was elected and the Malfoys might just be (or pretend to be) old school Protestant (but, hey, that's another rant all together). ”
Ok, one more time. Politics=life. Also? Opinions and lj posts are generally not social prescriptions.
Fandom is full of politics and denying its existence is just The Dumb. I could go over why the posts in this thread seem to be mostly the fault of an inability to read critically, but I’d just be boring myself. Instead, I’m just going to say this: read twice before getting your back up. Not every critical post is an attack on your Sacred Cocks.